CDR: Fw: Bill Clinton convicted of war crimes

[Marcel Popescu]

> From: "Dave Kuehne" <dkuehne at erols.com>
> To: "Dave" <dkuehne at erols.com>
> Subject: Bill Clinton convicted of war crimes
> Date: Sunday, September 24, 2000 1:27 AM
>
> Source:
> Virtual New York
> http://www.vny.com/
>
> Belgrade gives Clinton, others 20 years in jail
> http://www.vny.com/cf/News/upidetail.cfm?QID=120278
>
> Thursday, 21 September 2000 13:19 (ET)
>
> By STEFAN RACIN BELGRADE, Yugoslavia, Sept.  21 (UPI) -- The district
court
> in Belgrade Thursday sentenced President Clinton, Secretary of State
> Madeleine Albright and 13 other top Western and NATO leaders to a maximum
> 20 years in prison for the use of weapons prohibited under international
> law and crimes against the civilian population during last year's NATO air
> campaign against Yugoslavia.
>
> Veroljub Raketic, the presiding judge, said the arrest warrants would be
> issued for the convicted leaders and their sentences would start as soon
as
> they are arrested.
>
> During the four-day trial in the biggest courtroom in the Palace of
> Justice, in which 14 seats labeled with the names of the accused were left
> vacant, the officially appointed lawyer defending Clinton told the court
he
> could cite as an extenuating circumstances that Clinton came from "an
> incomplete family and lived with a step-father which probably left a mark
> on his overall behavior."
>
> Another court-appointed lawyer defending Albright asked the court to take
> into account her repressed psychological state as a woman subordinated to
> the U.S.  president and the fact that she had never before been sentenced
> for war crimes.
>
> Apart from Clinton and Albright the convicted included Defense Secretary
> William Cohen; British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Foreign Secretary
> Robin Cook; French President Jacques Chirac, Foreign Minister Hubert
> Vedrine and Defense Minister Alain Richard; German Chancellor Gerhard
> Schroeder, Foreign Minister Joschka Fisher and Defense Minister Rudolf
> Scharping; the former and present NATO Secretaries General Javier Solana
> and Lord George Robertson; and the former NATO Supreme Commander in
Europe,
> Gen.  Wesley Clark.
>
> They were ordered to pay legal costs within 15 days of the sentences
taking
> effect under pain of enforcement.
>
> The indictments said that the accused were responsible for NATO forces
> using 31,000 shells each with 300 grams of depleted uranium at eight
> locations in Serbia and Montenegro and that 10 tons of this kind of
> ammunition were dropped on Kosovo.  This specifically polluted the
> environments of villages in the vicinity of Vranje, Bujanovac and Presevo
> in southern Serbia causing various types of cancer and death, according to
> the indictments, the court said.
>
> NATO also dropped a huge quantity of cluster bombs in the areas of Nis,
> Sombor, Kurumlija, Podujevo, Kraljevo, Novi Sad, Mount Kopaonik and other
> places, killing 34 people including an 8-month pregnant woman and leaving
> many other people seriously or slightly injured, the indictment said.
>
> -- Copyright 2000 by United Press International.
> All rights reserved.